


sense of direction

by sunflowerwitches



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Advent, Canon Compliant.. kinda, Christmas, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:55:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27960386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerwitches/pseuds/sunflowerwitches
Summary: when dan said soulmates he meant every word, but maybe not in the way their audience assumed. he meant it. he means it still to this day. phil is his soulmate. phil is the love of his life, but the only thing is, phil definitely doesn’t feel the exact same way that dan does.
Relationships: Dan Howell & Phil Lester, Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 21
Kudos: 31





	1. Chapter 1

So, it is the first day of December. The first day that many people _allow_ others to be excited for Christmas. Anyone, if that person is like Phil, can be excited as early on as November, sometimes even before that which Dan finds fucking insane, but it’s usually a standard custom to be celebrating before December.

Usually, the whole entirety of the United Kingdom is knee deep in celebration on this day, but Dan never understands it. It is not like he dislikes Christmas by any means, but he doesn’t understand the hype. He can happily spend the entire month of December in a normal mood without Christmas in sight and not be bothered.

Dan always argues that Christmas is never the same once you grow up, almost as if it’s a matter of fact. Being a child at Christmas; the festivities of Christmas music being played everywhere you turn and the decorating of the tree with your Grandmother who makes sugar cookies as a treat afterwards, the exciting feeling about falling asleep on Christmas Eve to wake up to Santa having come to your house with gifts, the first fall of snow that leads to a thick blanket being spread across the entire town.

It’s all overwhelming exciting when you’re a small child. It is an excuse to eat a lot, get presents and not work and watch as your family members drink copious amounts of alcohol in the early morning.

And then you get older and everything seems just a touch different. The music becomes repetitive and annoying, especially when most radio stations begin to play most of the famous Christmas songs in the beginning of November – two months before Christmas day itself. The tree, annoying because when you’re the tallest person in the house you have forced to do _everything_ and it sucks all the fun out of it.

The sugar cookies are no longer full of the sugar you thought, they are kind of dry and bland in taste, or they are far too much sugar to even consume. No in between. The excitement of falling asleep on Christmas Eve is gone because you know that Santa doesn’t exist and it’s your parents who give you the gifts. It doesn’t quite have the same effect when everyone seems to ask for money as a present instead of actual gifts.

The snow is awful. It’s never a place to play anymore, because you have things to do. It’s nothing but an inconvenience as the cold bites at your hands and cheeks when you’re just trying to do your errands for the day. The snow that hasn’t managed to melt away from the sun that shines throughout the days turns into this horrific ice that makes leaving the house the worst case scenario.

Phil on the other hand, does not ever feel like that. It’s Phil’s favourite time of the year for all the same reasons why children enjoy Christmas and for the several years that Dan has known him (he doesn’t dare what to say the specific D word for their length of time being friends) Phil has always been on the ball with excitement and festive celebrations.

It’s warming for Dan to see. It’s completely endearing and Dan isn’t sure he would ever be tired of seeing that warm look across Phil’s face whenever they leave their apartment during the festive month and they are hit with the strings of lights across the streets above them.

When Dan said soulmates he meant every word, but maybe not in the way their audience assumed. He meant it. He means it still to this day. Phil is his soulmate. Phil is the love of his life, but the only thing is, Phil definitely doesn’t feel the exact same way that Dan does.

At least he doesn’t think so.

Why would he?

Dan is just Dan and Phil is well, Phil.

Without thinking too much, Dan decides to throw the blanket off of his body and jump up with a thrust, because it’s the very first day of December and Dan can be a little bit Christmassy to win the heart of the man he loves.

~*~

“What are you doing?” is the sound that startles Dan out of the trance he is in. He has bundles and bundles of tinsel wrapped around his neck with his hands trying to figure out how the hell the Christmas tree lights work when they don’t have a battery compartment and the ability to hook up to a mains outlet.

“What do you mean? It’s the first day of December, Philly,” Dan replies cheerfully, turning around and seeing Phil wrinkle his nose at what Dan can assume is the nickname he sang at the end. Phil never really liked being called Philly, apparently, but somehow Dan did not believe it when it always follows with a fond smile.

“I didn’t expect you, of all people, to be this excited about Christmas,” Phil says, leaning his body up against the doorframe with a smirk spreading across his face. “You’re always screaming about how Christmas is just capitalism wrapped up in ugly wrapping paper and a bowtie?”

“I never said that?” Dan frowns, knowing he had said exactly that. He still stands by that point, that Christmas equals capitalism, but he isn’t going to tell Phil that. He doesn’t want Phil to win this little humorous argument they are having.

“You literally said it the first ever Christmas that I had known you, and you made sure to let me know every year after that,” Phil continues to tease and Dan has to suppress the urge to roll his eyes.

“Stop being such a scrooge! Are you going to help me or not?”

Phil nods smiling widely as he walks over. He finds a seat next to Dan and begins to rummage through one of the boxes that Dan had _struggled_ to get out of their cluttered spare room.

 _“Christmas is just a commercial holiday that forces people into believing the way to show love is to buy gifts for one another,”_ Phil repeats exactly what Dan knows he had said to him a year ago. He remembers that conversation well.

_”Christmas is just exactly that, a commercial holiday that guilts people into believing you have to spend tons of money on people to love them.”_

_“What?” Phil gasped when he hears the words muttered from Dan’s mouth and Dan wasn’t necessarily surprised at the reaction._

_“You heard me!”_

_“Is that why you’ve never bought me expensive gifts? I was starting to think that you didn’t love me.”_

_The smirk across Phil’s face was enough to force Dan to change the subject._

“Grow up,” Dan rolls his eyes as he takes the tinsel off of his neck and beginning to align it across the fireplace, wrapping it carefully on the top and making sure to not accidentally knock over anything fragile that they have placed on the time. “I thought you would enjoy me wanting to pump up the Christmas spirit in this house?”

“I guess you’re right. It’s usually just me,” Phil shrugs, a smile on his face still apparent but it’s mellowed out.

“Exactly,” Dan says simply, because whilst it is usually just Phil in the Christmas spirit in their home, it’s time to change that.

“But why? Why are you suddenly loving Christmas?”

“Maybe you’ve rubbed off on me?” Dan says as he grabs a few more pieces of tinsel for the tree now. Phil just laughs in response.

They fall into a comfortable silence for a short amount of time. Phil chose to put a Christmas playlist on their sound system and they get into the habit of silently organising their Christmas decorations into piles and then putting them around the room – Dan placing candles on the side of their cupboards, maybe a couple in the middle of their coffee table surrounded by an artificial plant that Phil has demanded they have in the past, and Phil quietly dancing to himself.

He stopped decorating long ago and Dan doesn’t quite know when he stopped but he turns around to make casual conversation to see Phil watching Dan’s general direction.

“What?” Dan says anyway, frowning because Phil definitely wasn’t looking at him.

“Nothing,” Phil blushes,

“You’re supposed to be helping,” Dan whines, pouting slightly.

“One second, I think we have some of the fancy ornaments in the spare room, I’ll go and get them,” Phil jumps up with a smile on his face, and Dan rolls his eyes as Phil walks away.

“Okay,” Dan mutters as he tries to unwrap the fairy lights.

Dan is not sure whether it’s his clumsy legs not being able to coordinate his feet well or whether it’s the fairy lights being the absolute worst thing for him to be carrying in this moment that makes him do this, but his foot gets tangled in _something_ anyway and makes him misplace his footing.

He falls down with a yelp, feeling the lower part of his back hit first with a painful bang. He lies there trying to catch his breath for a few moments and he hears elephant feet come running down the hallway.

He cringes when he sees Phil return with a shock spread across his face.

“Are you okay?” Phil almost looks pained himself, like he was the one who fell to the floor and Dan has to suppress any annoyance in his system, because it’s clear that Phil only cares about his best friend being hurt.

“Fairy lights are a menace,” Dan groans, closing his eyes whilst he lifts himself up a little bit to rub his back, where the pain is.

When Dan opens his eyes again, Phil is hovering above him, which is not at all intimidating. He squints his eyes up at him as he watches a genuine smile spread across Phil’s face.

“Come on you muppet,” Phil teases, reaching his hand out in an offer for Dan to take it, to help him up. Dan _knows_ they have held hands a few times, platonically of course, when it’s been cold or whatever, but in the safety of their own home, it feels different.

Dan rolls his eyes but takes Phil’s hand all the same, ignoring the blush spreading across his cheeks as he does so.

~*~

Dan hasn’t worked out this much in years. He was panting, he was sweating from places he didn’t even know he could sweat from. And by the looks of things, Phil is the exact same way.

“Is that the last of them?” He asks, albeit too soft for the way he is feeling. He has a wide smile across his face as he looks over at Phil.

Phil gives him a small huff of breath for a moment and in that moment, Dan thinks that that is all he is going to get as a reply, but then he nods staring at the room in front of them, all covered in Christmas joy, before spinning his face to lock eyes with Dan.

“We have too many decorations,” Phil laughs as he turns his head away. Dan knows that Phil is lying and wouldn’t want any _less_ decorations if Dan were to offer it. Phil loves just how Christmassy their apartment lounge is looking.

The tree is beautiful. A beautiful array of changing multicoloured lights against the greenery of the tree. Tinsel splayed across the tree is an almost clumsy fashion with baubles thrown about without any sense of direction.

Sure, it isn’t a perfect tree like in the movies, but it’s Dan and Phil’s and that’s enough for them. It _is_ beautiful.

“That’s a lie and you know it.”

“Yeah,” Phil replies softly, staring back at Dan with an even softer smile across his face. It almost makes Dan want to lean in, but he knows he can’t. He can’t just _kiss_ Phil right now.

Phil swings up suddenly, lifting his entire body off of the couch and onto his feet. He spins around, almost too dramatically so Dan has to question where the hell Phil got all this sudden energy from but when Phil opens his mouth, it’s clear where from.

“Hot chocolate?”


	2. Chapter 2

Dan doesn’t want to admit to himself that at the beginning of the month he said that he wanted to confess his feelings for Phil before Christmas rolled around, because all of a sudden it becomes the middle of December and Dan hasn’t even muttered a word to Phil.

Okay, that’s a lie. He _has_ spoken to Phil in the last two weeks but definitely not enough to strike up the conversation about his never-ending love and adoration for the other. At least that’s the excuse that Dan is giving himself.

Truth be told, he could just outright say something. He could have just walked into the lounge whilst Phil is trying to watch episodes of Strictly Come Dancing, a show that he would never admit to anyone outside of this flat that he adores, and just confessed everything there and then. But that’s not the way Dan does things and it probably never will be.

The morning of the annual Christmas party that Cornelia and Martyn have before they travel to the Isle of Man for Christmas, like Phil does a few days closer to Christmas because he says that he still has things to do in London before the holidays properly begin, spins around way before Dan can properly prepare himself.

Maybe it won't be this evening that Dan confesses his feelings but it’s still an opportunity to just spend an evening in close company with Phil, and drinking along the way. Just general funsies.

He slowly gets out of the warmth of his bed, stretching his long limbs out an obscene amount, producing a groan that he would be embarrassed about if anyone was in the room with him. But no one is, so he has no shame to just stretch it a little more.

Heading to the ensuite, he steps forward into the shower, making sure to hide from the spray so he doesn’t get his pyjamas too wet when he turns the water on, so it can warm up whilst he gets undressed.

Getting quickly undressed, he puts his pyjamas on top of the closed toilet seat and opens the shower door to allow the spray to eventually soak him. For a few moments before he runs his fingers through his hair.

He hates the thought that he has been neglecting his self care recently, but he hasn’t meant to. Dan just struggles to find a healthy medium between doing absolutely no self care and doing the absolute most he can fit into one sitting before he is potentially _too cared for_. He has just been busy with thinking about how the hell he is going to tell Phil that he is in love with him, and his writing of course. Mainly his writing. That aside, he allows himself to bask into the warm water of the shower for a while.

The steam from the hot water is already starting to fill the bathroom up but Dan ignores it in favour of allowing himself a good soak. Eventually, Dan bends down, wrapping his hand around the shampoo and massaging a small amount into his hair and over his scalp, making sure to really rub it in enough for a deep clean, yet again because he wants to make sure he is giving his hair the treatment it deserves.

He moves onto body wash, lathering himself up and watching it wash away down the drain before turning the shower off and stepping out into the cold air of his bathroom, the cold hair reddening his cheeks and quickly wrapping a towel around his waist and heading back into his bedroom.

After getting changed into a comfortable pair of joggers and his trusted oversized black striped jumper, he heads into the lounge to see Phil watching another episode of Strictly Come Dancing, the way he always seems to find him recently. His eyes are quite literally glued to the screen and Dan can’t help but smile fondly to himself as he sits down next to Phil and looks at the television.

“What have I missed?”

“Nothing really,” Phil whispers, another trait he has when he is watching something. He doesn’t want to speak to loudly in fear of speaking too loud that he _can’t_ hear the show himself. It is quite endearing when Dan thinks about it. “Craig just said something really mean to Dianne and her partner, and they started crying.”

“Oh, that’s awful!”

“But you know it’s all part of the bit. Craig isn’t _genuinely_ like that and they make him be a little mean because that’s the whole nasty judge stereotype on these types of shows,” Phil speaks a little bit louder this time, but still nothing more than a whisper.

“I guess you’re right,” Dan responds eventually.

“Duh, I am Phil.”

Dan thinks it’s best that he doesn’t reply because, for one, Phil has lost all emotion across his face resulting to only staring at the television screen and second, he doesn’t think he wants his head bitten off by Phil after a sarcastic comment.

~*~

Dan’s not surprised when Cornelia swings open the door to greet them when they arrive. She’s always been the person to stand by the front door to greet all of the partygoers that they invite, which is a lot of the time.

Although he is overwhelmed the second he walks into their flat and she throws her arms around his neck for a hug, attempting to shout over the Christmas music but failing to do so because even though she’s right in his ear he can’t really hear her.

She pulls him back, hands still holding him still in the spot he is in and smiles at him widely.

“I’ve missed seeing you, Dan!”

“It’s only been a few weeks!” Dan chuckles to them both, ignoring that Phil is still technically in the doorway waiting to come inside. It does not matter too much because Phil has done this to him countless times, Dan is allowed to be rude for a moment.

“That’s too long,” Cornelia smiles, which he returns gratefully, as she finally lets him go so she can say hello to Phil.

He hears her gasp and squeal about something or other as he walks down the hallway into the lounge to see who is at the party.

There are a few people that he recognises. Obviously, Martyn is sitting on the floor by the coffee table talking to some guests that Dan doesn’t recognise, but it doesn’t surprise him that Martyn is here. When he spins his head, he notices PJ and Sophie sitting on one of the sofas and he puts a mental reminder in his brain to speak to them later, because they are some of his closest friends, Phil aside, and he hasn’t spoken to them as much as he should have recently.

That aside, he can’t help but notice the extent of decorating that she has gone to for a small Christmas party. There are sprigs of mistletoe hung up all over, some of which looking like they are in such awkward positions that it’s not possible for any two people to be in that area to kiss let alone notice. But he guesses it is just for cutesy decorations and that makes a lot of sense for Cornelia.

“They always go all out,” Phil mutters behind him, gently placing his hand on Dan’s hip which causes Dan to freeze up and have some embarrassing inner gay panic moment before he moves it away and slides through the gap between Dan and the doorframe to stand in front of him.

Phil mutters something about seeing cookies on the table and encourages Dan to follow him to scope out the tasty treats that he knows Cornelia has slaved away baking the last few days. They were tempted to bring something out of house party etiquette, but when Dan looks at the rest of the buffet, he doesn’t think it was necessary. Maybe nice to do so, but they wouldn’t have been missed.

The music gets even louder when Dan heads towards the table, obviously following Phil like a sheep. It’s rude to say but if Dan had any other choice, he wouldn’t be here at this party. He doesn’t mean that negativity towards Cornelia and Martyn, because he adores the ground that they walk on – they’ve always done more than enough to make him feel welcome in the Lester family and he’s forever grateful – but the party atmosphere just _isn’t_ a Dan vibe.

He does appreciate the effort that they have gone to and after the year they have had with touring and what have you, they do deserve a little celebration and peaceful evening, even if the party isn’t strictly for them and the end of their world tour. Dan can imagine, to make it more tolerable at least.

“Do you want anything?” Phil mumbles through a sausage roll in his mouth. Dan can barely understand him but maybe

“No, I’m good for now actually.”

“Okay, more for me.”

Dan rolls his eyes playfully.

“Oh, so you _did_ want something?”

“Shut up,” Dan pushes him playfully before turning around with his mulled wine and heading to the part of the lounge where everyone is talking.

He takes a drink of the mulled wine as he sits down on the sofa, enough space between that random stranger that Martyn is speaking to and PJ. As soon as he places his butt on the sofa, PJ must notice his presence and turns around, smiling widely.

“Alright man, how’s it going?”

“Going good, going good. You?”

“Not bad actually. Are you finally off for Christmas or are you and Phil still hard at work?”

“Yeah I bet you’re working so much right now,” Sophie says.

“We’ve just about finished the tour DVD so not much now until January.”

“That’s awesome,” Sophie replies, and it sounds like she's going to say something more but instead PJ takes over.

“How are _things_?” PJ waggles his eyebrows and Dan tries to think why he is acting like that. Sophie clears her throat and shrugs back into the back of the sofa, clearly dipping out of this conversation and Dan gets the sudden hint that he wants to do the same.

“I don’t know what you mean?” Dan says slowly, taking a sip of his mulled wine in favour of doing something with his hands.

“Oh,” PJ lifts his brows sarcastically as he speaks. “We’re like that still, huh?”

“Like what?” The anxiety floods throughout his whole body suddenly. Dan isn’t too sure what PJ means but it’s probably what he _thinks_. Dan can’t believe he’s been so transparent about the whole ordeal.

PJ laughs for a moment, and Dan can tell immediately it is out of awkwardness. Dan clears his throat and with it, the anxiety seems to mellow in him too.

“Like what?” Dan repeats, but this time it’s a lot less startling, thank god for the clearing of the throat.

“It’s apparently true what they say about gay people being blind,” PJ chuckles before playfully slapping Dan’s leg in lieu of goodbye before turning back around to Sophie to continue their conversation.

Dan stands up, already having finished his glass of mulled wine and desperately searching for another refill because he surely needs _something_ to make it through this evening if PJ’s conversation is anything to go by.

He makes his way into the kitchen, albeit a little bit clumsy due to the alcohol threading through his veins, and his feet suddenly stop him in the doorway when he sees Phil and Cornelia having a quiet, intimate conversation. Phil is sitting on the countertop, which means this conversation must be serious because Cornelia is very strict with her cleanliness and Phil’s butt on the countertop isn’t exactly clean.

“Uh, sorry,” Dan says awkwardly, causing Cornelia to dart her head around like she’s been caught like a deer in headlights. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Hey dan,” Phil takes a deep breath and says softly, giving him a small smile.

“I can leave if-?”

“No, you’re good. I need to go and say hello to other guests,” Cornelia says, like her usual cheerful self and when she walks past Dan, she sends him a genuine smile and squeezes his bicep in a motherly way that she always acts around him.

“Hey”, he says, smiling back at him even though years of practice told Dan that the smile across Phil’s face wasn’t really genuine. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Okay that's bullshit and we both know it."

Phil rolls his eyes, in that way that annoys Dan, and for a split second, Dan thinks that is all he’s getting from Phil. That makes him want to repeat himself in that annoyingly passive aggressive tone he uses when he’s pissed off, but before he has an opportunity to do so, Phil sighs again.

"I just want to socialise but I'm not really feeling the vibe, you know?"

"I get you," Dan sighs, as he watches Phil run his hand through his hair in that accidentally obnoxiously hot way that he always does when he's frustrated. Dan wants to ask why but he can't bring himself to when it's in a mood like this. "Do you want to run away and hide in the spare room?"

“We probably shouldn’t do that,” Phil chuckles, looking like himself for the first time since Dan entered the kitchen. “Cornelia would flip at us not socialising at a party.”

“You’re right but when do we ever listen to her when it comes to socialising?” Dan can’t help the smile that spreads across his lips.

And so, Phil jumps off the countertop and they both do their usual stealth operation of obtaining a few plates of snacks from the buffet table and sneaking off into the spare bedroom down the hall, away from the loud party music of the evening. It’s kind of amazing actually, that they are able to always do this at parties.

It’s so amazing in fact, that it makes Dan forget about the mulled wine that he promised himself.

~*~

Phil waves his hand dismissively in Dan’s face as he almost chokes on the pizza slice he had stuffed into his mouth without ceremony.

“You’re so rude to me,” Phil exclaims, trying to speak and swallow the pizza at the same time.

“You’re so weird,” Dan laughs fondly, knocking into Phil as he does so.

They are sitting on the double bed that’s in the middle of the room. The music from the party down the hallway is just loud enough that they can hear it faintly, their quiet voices loud enough to speak over the bass from the music, and that is just the way Dan likes it.

He finds comfort in the fact that he can sit on this bed with Phil, snacking on the various types of vegan pizza that Cornelia had cooked for the party, and not worry about having to put on a fake smile or face in order to socialise.

"I'm so not weird, that's you," Phil says triumphantly, and Dan can only assume that is because he had managed to swallow the pizza slice without dying.

"I'm not the one who shoved an entire slice of pizza down their throat," Dan chuckles, reaching forward for his own pizza slice. Phil watches and Dan takes this as an opportunity to display his perfect pizza eating skills, ones that don't lead to him choking and dying. He munches on the pizza and he starts feeling a tiny bit uncomfortable that Phil isn't looking away, a few seconds of comedy is all Dan really has the energy for and Phil watching him, making him put on a show for longer.

Except, it isn't really a show because Dan is just simply eating pizza but it feels that way. It always feels that way when Dan has to be around Phil on his own. It really shouldn't, because they live together and spend _most_ of their time alone together, but this month especially has started to feel like a huge show to him. He isn't sure whether Phil feels the same way, but the energy in the air makes Dan feel something.

Their eyes meet and Dan is all of a sudden so fucking aware of just how little space is between the pair of them. The air in Dan’s lungs suddenly feels heavy and he feels stuck, his ass glued to the bed with no ability to budge.

Something a little bit reckless and crazy simmers through Dan’s skin, probably because of the mulled wine that he had downed throughout the evening before they came into the spare room. The low lights cascading through the bedroom window to highlight the cheekbones on Phil’s face, making them just look _perfect_ and all Dan wants to do is sink his teeth into them but he shouldn’t.

He can’t.

Dan’s eyes move back to Phil’s and when he sees his eyes staring south of Dan’s own eyes, it makes Dan feel a little bit more confident than he probably should have been so before he can allow his anxious thoughts to ruin this moment, he leans into Phil’s face even further and presses their lips together.

It’s light at first and Dan swears he feels Phil gasp, but once that gasp is over, Phil takes it upon himself to deepen the kiss. He threads his hands into Dan’s hair, pulling him even closer to him that he is practically on Phil’s lap.

He feels like he’s drowning in it. He shouldn’t be but he can’t help it. It’s probably the alcohol, Phil probably drank as much as him and this is why he’s accepting this. Touch starved after months on tour with his best friend.

With these thoughts flooding Dan’s mind, he still can’t bring himself to move away. Phil’s hands are running from gripping his shirt to pull him closer, to rest on his hipbone, and Dan starts to feel himself losing himself entirely. He feels overwhelmed with the feeling of Phil on his lips and that he is holding him down as if to tell him to _not leave_.

Suddenly, they dart away from each other when there’s a knock on the door. The beating of Dan’s heart is the only thing he hears momentarily before focusing on the voice behind the door.

“I know you idiots are in there,” Cornelia sings through the door. “Don’t make me come in there and make you socialise!”

Dan struggles to open his eyes, and even when he manages to, he struggles to even look at Phil. That would be too much.

When he does, Phil isn’t even looking at him. He has this glazed over look in his eyes and Dan can’t place it.

“I should go,” Phil mutters, mainly to himself, before standing up and leaving Dan alone in the room to fester with his thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah uh anyways that happened :) 
> 
> but it's not the end i have one or two chapters (ish) left of this lil short fic <3


	3. Chapter 3

The fact that they were almost caught taking that step in between platonic and something different isn’t what hurts the most for Dan. It should. It should hurt Dan because that is such a ground breaking step between the pair of them, but it doesn’t hurt him all that much. He kind of expected it, he had a solid thirty seconds to understand what was going on in order to accept it.

The fact that clearly Phil feels something similar to him for them to kiss that long isn’t what hurts surprisingly enough. He didn’t expect this one, mainly because he had accepted a long time ago that Phil didn’t feel anything back, and it was only the occasional moment when they were alone together that he thought anything different. Those intimate moments where he knew they both felt _at home_ and comfortable with one another.

It wasn’t either of those that hurt the most, it was the fact that Phil _ran_ away.

Well, he didn’t necessarily run away. He just stared at anything other than Dan, who Dan thinks at least, should be the person he was looking at in that moment. They have been friends for years, well over a decade now, and Phil should have been able to feel comfort in him even if the situation they were in was a little weird.

It stung a little, Dan thinks to himself as he stumbles out of the room, shutting the door behind himself. He walks along the hallway already regretting the moment he stepped out of the room to _socialise_ because he suddenly doesn’t feel like it anymore. The whole evening has been ruined by something that should have definitely been fun but he had to lean into that desire he had threading through him.

Maybe if he had a little bit more self control this would have been a lovely evening.

Eventually, albeit reluctantly, he arrives back into the lounge where the party is happening and it doesn’t look like anything had changed. Everyone is just idly chitchatting to one another.

“You managed to come out of your hiding room then?” Cornelia giggles as he walks into the lounge after maybe far too long. Everyone is looking desperately like they want to look at Dan to listen to him speaking, but are avoiding his eye contact. Everyone apart from Cornelia that is, which makes Dan think something is wrong.

When Dan looks around the room, he tries to find eye contact with Phil urgently but after a quick search with his eyes, he does not find Phil and that makes him anxious even more.

“Where’s Phil?” He says, turning his head to stare at Cornelia, and he sees that familiar twinkle in her eyes. He’s seen it a lot, mainly because Cornelia followed them around on their two tours as support, and saw her reactions to whenever Dan and Phil would speak to each other or according to her opinions, _flirt_.

Dan didn’t believe it at the time, because he knew he would be the one flirting and definitely not Phil, but now he isn’t too sure. Not that he thinks that Phil likes him in anything other than a platonic sense, because why would he? But he has a lot of questions that need answering but with Phil not here, that becomes impossible.

“I thought he was with you?” She replies eventually, standing up and walking over to the buffet table to put a few pieces of food on her plate, whilst turning her hand to keep her sight on Dan. Dan doesn’t know how she does that, because he is sure that he would have misplaced his hand several times and maybe caused the table to collapse, but she does it elegantly with no difficulties as far as Dan can see.

“No, well he was. But where is he now?” He cringes as he speaks, sudden memories of what happened when they were together flooding back, as if they ever truly left.

“I was under the assumption he was still in your hiding room,” Cornelia smiles at him, almost like she knows. But there’s no way she does, because she was the other side of a closed door and unless she’s got x-ray vision, there’s no way she saw what went on.

“Oh,” Dan says quietly.

Fuck. Did Phil really leave the party after whatever happened in that room?

“I’m going to go find him,” Dan says, already looking around for his jacket so he can go outside into the freezing cold outside. He places his hand on the collar of what he assumes is his own coat, pulling it free from the bottom of the pile because for some reason, his coat is on the bottom of the pile even though he had been the last person to arrive.

“Oh Dan, he’s a grown boy, isn’t he?” Martyn pipes up, and Dan tries to remember this is Phil’s brother, so he doesn’t roll his eyes. Or at least not roll them where Martyn could see.

“Yeah, Dan. Come play Monopoly with us,” PJ comments, as he pulls the lid off of the monopoly box and shuffles to make room between him and Sophie so Dan can sit down. Dan being Dan, too awkward to say no, obviously offers a small nod before coming to sit down to play a round of Monopoly.

But after this game, he is going to go find Phil, he tells himself.

“As long as I get to be the dog,” Dan tries to crack a smile at this, but all he is reminded is that Phil always complains when Dan demands the dog figurines and his smile immediately falters.

It’s almost like Martyn notices, because when Dan catches his eye to grab the dog playing piece he notices a genuine smile across Martyn’s face, a smile that he doesn’t really see that often from Phil’s older brother. Martyn is the jokester of the group, never really one for serious moments. He usually pokes fun out of Dan rather than having a sincere moment with him, and this felt different.

Dan takes the dog figurine from him and places it on the starting part of the board, ignoring the intense gaze that he feels burning a whole into his temple, and watches as PJ enthusiastically begins playing the game.

~*~

“You can’t throw hotels at me whenever I ask for your money,” Martyn laughs, pointing his index finger and waggling it at Cornelia. Dan hasn’t really been paying attention for the last hour, because his brain has obviously been on other things, but he does remember Martyn demanding to be the banker.

It reminds him of Phil, how whenever they regretfully decide to play this time consuming game, he also demands to be the banker. Saying that apparently a masters degree in video postproduction and visual effects is warranted enough, proving his intelligence. Dan doesn’t ever seem to agree that an artistic degree proves anything about mathematical intelligence but he can hardly say no to seeing the small grin that appears across Phil’s face when Dan admits defeat.

He does see that similar smile, this time spread across Phil’s brother’s face, but it doesn’t have the same affect that Phil’s does. Yet again, proving that it is not just the smile that makes Dan happy to see, it’s the person whose smile it is.

“I can do what I please, house rules,” Cornelia argues back, making PJ and Sophie chuckle to themselves as they lean back, both already declared bankrupt. Somehow it was only just Martyn, Cornelia and Dan himself playing, and for the first time in his life he wished that he just _lost_ money so he could stop playing and go look for Phil.

“It’s my house too!”

This makes PJ and Sophie laugh again and Dan adds in a fake chuckle in order to keep up appearances as he watches Martyn indicate that it is his turn, grabbing the dice and rolling them half heartedly before picking up his dog counter and moving it a couple of spaces, zoning out again.

They play the rest of the game like this, and it’s easy for Dan to fall into a rhythm of knowing whenever it’s his turn without really paying attention. He does notice the occasional glances that he would get from Martyn when it isn’t his turn, originally thinking it _was_ his turn before realising that Martyn was just looking at him with concern in his eyes.

He ignores it of course, because the only Lester that he wants to speak about this evening with isn’t here.

Around thirty minutes later, the game is still underway but Dan luckily rolls the number needed in order to land on one of Martyn’s buildings, that had about three hotels on it, causing him to not have enough money to pay off the debt and thus losing the game. He sighs, and rolls his eyes, to add dramatic effect whilst he admits defeat but he’s sure that everyone can see he doesn’t _really_ care.

“Bad luck, Dan,” Martyn says sympathetically even though Dan knows that Martyn knew he didn’t necessarily want to play the second he started the game. Cornelia nods at him, also sympathetically, before getting a huge grin on her face and grabbing the dice with a squeal. Dan’s loss already long forgotten with the chance of winning.

“I’m going to get a drink, anyone want anything?” Dan says, as he uncrosses his legs and begins to stand up away from the coffee table. There is a murmur of answers, all resulting in _no we do not need anything_ so Dan nods politely before excusing himself to the kitchen, out of sight.

Sighing as he opens the cupboard to get a glass, he thinks to himself about how he has ended up here this evening. Not at the party, the evening in general.

They came to this party as just friends and now they are probably _still_ that, but there’s a whole discussion to be had. Dan has kissed friends before of course he has, but never Phil. He would never, not after all they’ve been through.

The polite difference is that he would _like_ to. He would very much love to kiss Phil, and the experience he had just under two hours ago proves that he did enjoy it very much. But this wasn’t how he expected to kiss Phil for the first time and they need to speak about it.

Except Phil isn’t here and has assumedly ran off to hide from Dan, and the awkwardness when he has to tell Dan that it was definitely an accident and Phil doesn’t like him like that. That’s exactly how it’s going to go down and Dan has long accepted that, after the first run around the Monopoly board. He just needs Phil here to break that to him.

He grabs a random glass, not really caring which one it is, before walking over to the sink and pouring himself a glass of water. He debates on drinking something alcoholic, but he doesn’t think that’s the best shout this evening, not if he wants to be sober for Phil’s rejection.

Downing the rest of his water, he makes his way back into the lounge to see non other than Phil, sitting at the dining table staring at the bowl of peanuts in front of him. Dan watches for a moment as Phil lazily reaches forward and grabs a handful and shoves them into his mouth. He looks cold and upset, maybe because he doesn’t want to reject Dan on an otherwise lovely evening.

“Here’s the mystery man of the evening,” Cornelia declares when Dan enters the room, as if Dan wouldn’t have noticed him in front of him and needed Cornelia to announce it.

“Phil,” Dan begins to say, stepping closer to Phil and the table.

“Can we not?” Phil interrupts him.

“We need to-“

“No, please,” Phil almost begs and it breaks Dan’s heart there and then. “Can we drop it?”

Dan is stunned for a second. He expected to walk up to Phil and hear words that pierce his heart with a knife and stab it multiple times until it’s in two pieces.

_”It was a mistake, sorry Dan.”_

_“Can you just accept I would never like you like that?”_

_“I’m sorry but it was some sort of epic prank. Thought it was funny.”_

But he doesn’t get anything of the sort, instead, he gets a frowning Phil practically begging Dan to not talk about the kiss they shared, and he doesn’t know how to process that. He had accepted rejection, something mean but not too mean because of course it’s Phil, but not this

Maybe Dan should have drunk alcohol instead of water.

"Oh," Dan says, and he’s pretty sure that the bluntness of his words displays how upset he is, even if the wobble in his voice doesn’t.

"Sorry," Phil whispers but Dan doesn’t really want to listen anymore.

"No. It's okay."

Before Phil could reply, Dan is dragging himself off into the kitchen because he definitely should have drank alcohol instead of water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :') i'm so sorry for the angst but there's one chapter left so :) <3


	4. Chapter 4

Turns out Dan doesn’t quite know when to stop drinking. He doesn’t mean to get absolutely smashed but one drink leads to two, and then two leads to a solid five and he feels a little bit wavey.

For the most part, he has fun for the rest of the evening. Phil doesn’t want to speak to him, but that’s okay because he has PJ and Sophie who are his friends who would _never_ abandon him in his time of need. The time being, distracting him from whatever his brain is thinking about.

A quiet buzz of music plays around the apartment, Dan can barely hear it but he’s pretty sure the exact same version of Ariana Grande’s song _Santa Tell Me_ at least five times now. Everyone around him has a pleasant amount of alcohol within them to not notice but even with the alcohol threading through his veins, he notices.

Because he isn’t really with it, as recent events have shown and even with far too many double Jack Daniel’s and cokes, he still feels far too _aware_ for his own good. It’s almost like his brain hates him. Maybe it does, it would not surprise him.

Towards the end of the evening, Phil does open up a little more. It’s not like their usual interactions but Phil offers to make him a drink at least twice and Dan says thank you when the fresh glass of alcohol is handed to him. Dan is also pretty sure that he mutters the words _excuse me_ to him when Dan had been standing in the way of the doorway, helping himself to the buffet food, so all in all not a bad experience given the circumstances.

It’s getting later, and everyone is lying in their own respective areas of the room. It kind of stings to see PJ and Sophie cuddled up on one side of the sofa with Martyn and Cornelia on the other, her head on his shoulder and his head on top of her own.

It also stings to see that Phil is sat the complete opposite side of the room in the vintage rocking chair that Cornelia demanded on buying for their flat, Dan remembers that conversation and/or argument far too well. Usually, they wouldn’t hesitate to offer each other some displays of affection in these circumstances, completely platonic but still nice nonetheless. Clearly, Phil has other ideas tonight.

“We best be off, I think,” PJ voices out eventually, and the inner voice in Dan’s brain mentally screams at how PJ is abandoning him even though he promised he would never. It’s not even _that_ big of a deal, because PJ and Sophie leaving still means there’s people here to interact with who aren’t Phil, but Dan likes to complain to himself all the same.

“Yeah,” Sophie yawns for good measure, stretching before PJ stands up and helps her out of their couch with his hand wrapping hers. Their hands don’t separate as they stand up and PJ makes sure he has all his things with him. It makes Dan feel a stir in his stomach and he can’t place the reason why.

“Thank you for coming,” Cornelia smiles at them, herself looking ready to fall asleep at any moment. “I’ll walk you out.”

They all begin to filter by the front door of Cornelia’s apartment, everyone apart from Phil and Martyn because for some reason unknown to Dan they didn’t want to say goodbye by the door. They hugged goodbye in the lounge and that was enough for them.

Dan wasn’t like that, but maybe he is just clinging onto the last hope of having someone to make this entire evening less awkward.

He watches as Cornelia hugs them goodbye before handing Sophie a box of something Dan can only assume is some of the leftover food from the homemade buffet tonight. Cornelia steps back, and PJ comes forward with a soft smile across his face.

“Please talk to him,” PJ whispers in his ear as his arms swing around him. It’s quiet enough so that Cornelia and Sophie can’t hear, but loud enough to hit Dan.

“Huh?”

“You know what I mean,” PJ says, patting him on the back before pulling himself free from the hug.

They all quickly say their goodbyes and Dan follows Cornelia back into the lounge, like a little puppy not really knowing where to go. He turns the corner into the lounge and sees Martyn and Phil whispering to each other. Phil looks a little pissed off and Martyn just looks annoyed more than anything.

He clears his throat to make it clear that he is here, and Phil shoots back offering a shy timid smile before straightening his face out again and frowning at his own brother again.

Dan makes his way to the sofa anyway, choosing to ignore whatever is going on and already committing to his corner of the sofa and not willingly moving for at least another hour. He manages to make himself comfortable, sliding his phone out of his pocket to distract himself on Twitter or _any_ form of social media.

“I think it’s getting late actually,” Phil says, startling Dan slightly. Dan watches as Phil stands up, beginning to look around for his phone that he must have misplaced throughout the evening.

“Do you want me to come with you?” Dan looks at him and replies, softly almost like he doesn’t want to be heard.

Phil looks up at him. He looks exhausted and for a second, Dan sees a flicker of hope shine in his eyes before they fade into something a lot more upsetting and Dan loses that ability to imagine.

“Up to you,” Phil shrugs. “I’m not babying you though.”

“Never would have dreamed of it,” Dan tries to joke, but it comes out a little more bitter than he intended. No one points it out though.

He stands up himself, awkwardly pottering around the room trying to avoid being too close to Phil to find his things, even though he knows his belongings are going to be exactly where Phil’s are because they arrived together.

He doesn’t think he needs babying anyway, but that thought quickly changes to _yes I do_ when he almost trips over the air in front of him as he reaches for his coat. He hears a sigh and a click of the tongue before he feels hands resting on his shoulder and then they slide down to his hands, pulling them backwards in the direction of the armholes in his coat.

“See,” Phil mutters, mainly to himself. Dan doesn’t think he intends for anyone to hear it, but with their close proximity, Dan can’t help _but_ hear it. “What would you do without me?”

“I don’t know,” Dan swallows as he speaks and replies, although it is almost a whisper because of how dry his mouth is.

~*~

The cold air hits him as soon as he leaves the apartment building, removing any last ounce of alcohol in his system and allowing him to feel a lot more conscious of his surroundings. It’s not snowing, but it could be. It’s late enough in the early morning to show the frost appearing on the streets and the pavement feels a little slippering as Dan’s feet glide himself home.

They had decided to walk home, because they don’t actually live all that far from Cornelia and Martyn’s home and Phil said that they don’t really want to risk getting an Uber with the inflated holiday fees, because that’s apparently a lot recently and it’s “ridiculous”. Although, Dan is pretty sure Phil said that just so they didn’t have to be in an enclosed space together for too long, as they’ve never had this issue over previous holiday seasons – huddling close together in the back of a taxi using each other for warmth.

The fact that Phil is walking at least a metre to the side of Dan and a few paces in front of him when before, they would walk step in step with ease. Dan doesn’t think Phil cares about the price of the Uber.

“That was a good evening, wasn’t it?” Dan mutters, tucking his hands into his coat pockets and he makes any kind of conversation now they are alone.

“Yeah,” Phil mumbles back, almost jumping down Dan’s throat he replies that quickly.

Dan waits a few beats, thinking Phil _may_ say anything to continue their conversation but when it’s clear that he isn’t going to, Dan sighs. He sighs a little too loud to show his annoyance, because whilst the cold air has sobered him up slightly, he still has a little bit of alcohol in his system.

“What’s up with you?” Dan sighs again.

“What?”

“What is up?”

“Nothing?”

“Is it because of the kiss?” Dan waits a few beats and when he hears nothing, he decides it’s a good time to continue. “Because Jesus Christ Phil, if it pains you that much we can forget it but can you please not shut me out?”

Phil turns around at this and Dan sees that similar sight in his eyes, the shining beaming light of hope shimmering before dulling down into nothing at all.

“It doesn’t pain me,” Phil says eventually even though Dan thinks he looks like it hurt him to say.

“Then act like it.”

Dan continues walking, already hating this conversation more than he should. It’s also cold and he is already regretting his outfit choices in the middle of winter.

“Dan,” Phil begins to say, catching up to him with a brisk jog before slowing down and beginning to stand alongside him, the closest that they have been together since _that_ moment.

“What?” Dan hums, feigning nonchalance because if truth be told, since the moment he mentioned the kiss, his heart had been in his mouth. “If you don’t want to talk about it, we don’t have to.”

“Who said I didn’t want to?”

“Uh, you? Around two hours ago, at the party?” Dan is starting to get a little pissed off now. He doesn’t really get pissed off at Phil all that often, because they have a relationship where whenever they are annoyed at one another, they can voice it, but for some unknown reason to Dan, this isn’t happening at the moment.

“I just meant at the party, it wasn’t the time.”

“Oh,” Dan didn’t think about it like that. Maybe he can blame the alcohol he had been drinking that lowered his ability to think, but still at the same time, Dan thinks sober him would think _can you please drop it?_ means Phil doesn’t want to talk about it at all. He reckons he knows Phil enough to understand that. “You could have said that.”

“You didn’t let me.”

“No, you didn’t let _me_ speak.”

“Point taken.”

“Right,” Dan awkwardly chuckles, suddenly aware of the close presence that Phil has next to him.

“I wanted to say that we could talk about it when we weren’t at a party we weren’t hosting,” Phil continues, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “It just felt off to do that.”

“Then why did you run off?”

“I didn’t?”

“Don’t lie,” Dan chuckles, even though it is slightly awkward between them. “You ran out of the room so quick.

“Oh that.”

“Yeah that.”

“Well, I panicked. I guess?” Phil offers as an apology and Dan gladly accepts it, if a little sceptical. “I didn’t know what to do so I went to the store to get some sweets

“Sweets?” Dan properly looks at him for the first time since they left Cornelia’s apartment. Phil has a shy smile on his face, that very same one he had for a split second before it all went wrong in that spare bedroom.

“Yeah,” Phil says and he reaches inside of his coat pocket to pull out a half eaten packet of Haribos with a grin on his face, the type that allows his tongue to poke out of his mouth in between his teeth.

“You’re unbelievable,” Dan sighs, but chuckles afterwards.

At some point, Dan realises that they are standing in the middle of the park, the park that he used to jog in when he had taken up running as a healthy coping mechanism. He hasn’t been anywhere near here in the last year but it’s decorated so nicely for Christmas. There’s garlands wrapping around the street lamps and the fencing and it looks beautiful.

It doesn’t help with the middle of the night light and the twinkling Christmas lights that it makes everything look so pretty and Dan can’t help notice that it is reflecting against Phil’s face and lighting his cheekbones up in a variety of warm blues and greens.

It matches his eyes, Dan thinks to himself, and when he thinks that it’s almost like the gods were in his favour because Phil steps forward and allows the light to hit his eyes and-

God. Dan doesn’t think there could be anything more beautiful.

He feels vulnerable for a moment, and just basks in it, because he is so sure that his face says it all. It shows just how in love with his best friend he is, because he just knows that his eyes are searching every inch of Phil’s face to capture it for himself.

“You don’t half make things difficult,” Phil chuckles.

“Phil,” Dan croaks out. He isn’t sure how he manages it but he doesn’t get to ponder it for too long because Phil takes the last remaining steps and rests the palm of his hand on Dan’s cheek, stroking his thumb against the apple of his cheek.

Phil’s lips are pressed against his own before he can say anything else. It’s cold and dry, like Phil has been standing outside in the cold December air _far_ too long and for a second, Dan has a flicker of worry thread through his brain but that is until he feels Phil’s warm breath ghost over his lips when he begins to pull back and every single thought of worry disappears into a sudden urge of want.

He feels Phil’s hands resting on his waist and it makes him want even more, but it’s never enough. Even when Phil’s hands move from his waist to wrapping around his back to pull him even closer, it’s not enough and Dan doesn’t think it ever will be.

“What does this mean, Phil?” Dan pulls away eventually, even though he only wants to continue kissing Phil, he knows they need to speak about whatever the hell this is. Phil frowns a little, but Dan makes sure to keep his calm gaze on him, even though he knows he is mirroring Phil’s expression inside, and then some.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“I’m going to need some words here, Phil. You haven’t exactly been clear,” Dan replies. Again, as much as he wants to continue with Phil’s lips on his own and explore this _thing_ , he wants explicit consent. He wants to know exactly what Phil wants, or is asking for. He doesn’t want to go in all guns blazing only to be let down by a miscommunication error.

“I thought. I thought that first year that there was something going on here,” Phil says quietly. “But we were so young and I knew you were terrified of the possibility of _that_ happening and I’m not blaming you I just had to take the protective elder role. I pushed my feelings back to protect you.”

“I don’t,” Dan begins to speak, but he loses his words in his throat, trapped because his throat closes almost making him metaphorically choked. His heart is going a thousand miles per hour and it doesn’t help that he is that close to Phil that he can feel his doing exactly the same. “I don’t understand.”

“I kept my emotions under way since at least when we met up for Halloween. It killed me every time we would meet up because all I wanted to do was tell you,” Phil says quietly. “But then we moved in together, and it somehow normalised the feeling of being in love with you and made it easier to pretend.”

“In love?” Dan shakes his head, and for a second he sees Phil’s face go blank, before realising the shaking of his head is what is causing that. “Sorry, I just. You were in love with me? Back then?”

“Obviously,” Phil says with a smile, a smile that Dan would like to shake off of him because of how intoxicating it is. His voice is barely even there anymore, it is almost a whisper so Dan has to completely drop his concentration onto Phil’s mouth to understand, which of course isn’t helping any matters at hand.

“Okay,” Dan mutters, mainly to himself but he knows that Phil would probably like some verbal communication of some sorts, if he was anything like Dan and of course he is a little like Dan, that’s why this works so well. Dan nods a few times, the type of nod that people do when they don’t _really_ understand what the other is saying but feel dumb asking for them to repeat themselves for a fourth time. Dan does understand though, but he can’t help but teasing nonchalance. “Good to know.”

“Good to know?” Phil smirks, wrapping his arm around Dan’s waist tighter and thus pulling him closer. Dan hates how desperately he immediately falls into the embrace because he knows they need to talk but it’s just so intoxicating.

“Yeah,” Dan says after a few seconds, frowning slightly as if he had to think about it.

He looks up to gage Phil’s reaction shyly, because even though he can be bold as anything when he wants to himself to be but when it comes to Phil, he cannot help but be a little nervous. He is pretty sure that is understandable though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um ok... i finished this but i didnt feel Quite finished and it was getting too long so i wanted to add another chapter... maybe after christmas :)

**Author's Note:**

> :'))
> 
> this is just gonna be a super short fic, between 3/4 chapters i'm not sure yet as i'm finishing up the last chapter and i'm really loving writing it so i may do a cute lil 4th chapter of just pure fluff


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